TiN and TiAlN are widely used as coatings for cutting tools and agri-food industry due to their suitable mechanical properties as high compression strength and ultra-hardness. In addition tribological properties, such as good resistance to abrasion, erosion and cavitation, are ensured when using these coatings in olive oil extraction devices. However, there are few characterizations of these coatings in the literature in terms of damage parameters for example the minimum applied load when the coating starts to fail. In this work, both TiN and TiAlN coatings have been elaborated on stainless steel 304 L using cathodic arc physical vapor deposition (CAPVD). Vickers and Brinell indentation with load range from HV0.2 to HV100 and HBW 2.5/6.25 to HBW 2.5/187.5, respectively, were carried out on both coatings following the adequate test specification. The main results reveal that the increase of the applied load by using Vickers and Brinell measurements influences the coating and coating/substrate damage evolution. The SEM investigations of the Vickers indents for both TiN and TiAlN coatings show damages of the coatings consisting in parallel cracks to the indent edges within the whole range of the applied load. This confirms that fracture strength is reached inside the indentation area. Meanwhile, considering the Brinell indentation tests, both coatings start to fail only at loads higher than HBW 2.5/65.5. During the SEM examinations, the damage phenomena are shown to be in form of circular cracks and additional transversal ones in the center of the indent. As a conclusion, the Brinell indentation can identify the start of coating failure and is consequently more appropriate to characterize the investigated coatings than Vickers.